


Lost and Found

by strawberriesandtophats



Series: Disaster Management has always been their forte [10]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Cowboy Jakes AU, Falling In Love, M/M, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 05:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11155101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriesandtophats/pseuds/strawberriesandtophats
Summary: Thursday and Morse head to the States in pursuit of clues about a killer. The car breaks down and Morse is left alone while Thursday heads to town for help. Jakes finds Morse. Of course he does.





	Lost and Found

There was probably a world where they made it.  
Where both Morse and Jakes became Inspectors in the Oxford City Police and worked together their entire lives. Or a world where Jakes moved to London and visited sometimes, all cigarette smoke and sharp smiles.  
But it was not this world.

Jakes was gone, searching for greener pastures in the States. All that was left of them, of what they used to be, in dingy bedsits and shadowy cars, were a handful of letters and a few odd popular records hiding around in Morse’s record collection.

So when Morse followed Thursday to the states in a mad hunt for clues about a serial killer, Morse had nodded and ignored the persistent idea that he’d see Jakes again. Instead he focused on luggage and paperwork to send to Bright and keeping Thursday hydrated. After all, he had a job to do. There was no time to fantasize about something that would never happen.

And then they'd got lost in the middle of nowhere. The car had broken down from the heat and Morse had become sunburned, his skin turning a blotchy red and his nose flaking. Thursday had ordered him to stay in the car while he headed to town.

Morse had stayed in the car on this little country lane. After a while, when the radio began playing wistful love songs that made his heart recall things he’d promised himself he’d forget.

He looked up at the sound of hooves, hurrying outside. Careful not to lean on the red-hot metal of the rental car, he squinted into the sunshine. The shape of the man was familiar, but that was just the sunstroke talking. It had to be the sunstroke talking.

“What are you doing here?” asked the man, sliding off the horse. Morse's heart skipped a beat, blood rushing to his head.

Jakes had found him.

Here.  
In the middle of nowhere, among the corn and weeds and dusty from the road.  
Where he knew no one but Thursday, who was probably drinking iced tea on someone’s porch or to another police officer in a different kind of uniform than they had back home.  
Of course Jakes had found him, he was the best partner Morse had ever had.

“It’s for a case,” Morse managed, a part of him wanting to step back from the plaid shirt and cowboy hat combo Jakes was wearing. But another part of him, rebelliously, whispered about the appeal of cowboy erotica and kissing in the ripening corn fields.  
He refrained from mentioning that he was perfectly willing to cross entire continents if that meant he’d get a moment like this again. Jakes was staring at him like the world had given him an unexpected, but welcome git.

“Of course it is,” Jakes said, sounding entirely too fond. “I wouldn’t have expected anything else. Le’ts get you inside before you burn even more. I’ll leave a note for the old man.”

A blessedly cool hand was placed between Morse’s shoulder blades. The walls he’d carefully built around himself since Jakes had left, all the justifications about moving on, about how it had just been a temporary fling between colleagues, how it had been a way to relieve stress, all vanished into thin air.

Had he ever really fallen out of love? 

Jakes was smiling, his eyes bright in the sunshine. Perhaps, if they were lucky, this was the world where they would make it. Perhaps not perfectly, but Jakes leaving Oxford behind didn’t have to mean that they’d never see each other again.

Under the wide, open sky anything seemed possible. Anything at all.


End file.
